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Comparing lace

When I started my Day Lily Wrap a couple of weeks ago, I think I said something about being eager to see how the lace in this sweater compares with the braided leaf lace that I’ve knit many times in shawls and scarves. Today, I want to do that.

But first, I want to point out that I think any lace can be knitted from the bottom up or the top down. It takes a bit of engineering, but the increases you knit from the bottom, up become the decreases when you go the other way. I’ve actually knitted a few laces in both directions, depending on the project. Most of the projects in which I’ve done the braided leaves have been from the bottom, up. But when I did the Ashfield Caradigan last autumn, the braided leaves border in that is from the top down.

This is the yoke of the Vine Yoke Cardigan, photographed in the direction I knitted it.

Likewise, the lace that I knitted in the Vine Yoke Cardigan is basically the same lace as the lace in a cowl that I knitted in 2008, but the two laces go in different directions.

Believe it or not, the lace at the edge of this cowlis the same lace as the one in the Vine Yoke Cardigan, except that it's knitted in the opposite direction.

If I hadn’t done these projects, I probably would never have realized that lace can be knitted from either direction — you just have to know what you’re doing. I say this because I have seen many projects advertised on Ravelry with the Day Flower pattern from Barbara Walker. (Oh, by the way, it’s called the Day Flower, not the Day Lily, but I’ve already named my sweater, so I’m going to let it be and not change the name again). I find myself drawn to the stitch, and I’ve been collecting photos of the projects, but I think virtually all of them are knitted from the bottom up. So of course, leave it to me to pick the one project (or maybe one of two projects) that goes from the top down.

The problem with this is that it’s counter-intuitive. I find myself knitting the tops of the flowers first, not understanding what I’m doing, then suddenly discovering that the k3togs that I’m doing are creating the bottom of the flower. It took me longer than I care to admit to catch on. And therefore, I’ve found this lace to be quite a challenge. Some of you who think I’m such an expert knitter will be surprised to know how much I’ve ripped out and reknitted.

This is a closeup of the Day Flower pattern (which I mistakenly remembered as the Day Lily).

But it’s been worth it, and I am finally beginning to make friends with this stitch and get to know it well enough to figure out what I should be doing as I go from row to row. I do not have it memorized yet — not by a long shot. But I am slowly coming to understand how the stitches relate together, and for me, this is the first step in memorizing a complicated pattern. Frankly, I don’t memorize the pattern. I memorize the relationships. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s how I think. If I understand how the stitches work together, I can recreate the pattern again and again. It’s a little … no, a lot … like reinventing the wheel, but I find it easier than memorizing a sea of symbols that I can easily get lost in.

This is the braided leaf scarf I made for my sister-in-law. Doesn't it remind you of the lace in my latest project?

Which brings me to the two laces. Both of them have flowers or leaves that alternately face the center of the design. And I was interested to see whether they were constructed similarly. They aren’t.

The leaves in the Braided Leaf pattern grow from a single stem stitch as you do one yarn-over on alternate sides of the stem. This means that on every row, you’re going to have a yarn-over next to the stem, and you’ll also have a k2tog on every row to define the edge of the leaf. (In the Ashfield Cardigan, the designer changed it, skipping the decrease on the wrong-side rows and knitting 3 stitches together at the leaf edge on the right side rows. I did it her way to give it a try, but I think it makes the leaves pucker too much, and I wouldn’t do it that way again. ) But the leaves grow in a simple, logical, geometric way.

In the Day Flower pattern, the flowers bloom from a single stitch. If I was going from the bottom to the top, each flower would start with a stitch that increases to two stitches, then on the next row, it would become six stitches, then there would be a yarn over in the middle of them, and so on. And there is a series of yarn overs on an angle across the top of each flower.

In fact, everything in the Day Flower pattern seems to be defined by yarn overs. The stems, the flowers, the petals of the flowers…This makes the Day Flower lace a much more open stitch, and I think it’s probably better for summery wraps.

I’m glad I’m learning this new lace pattern, but I think I’ve learned my lesson about top-down laces. I think it’d be better to learn to do them from the bottom up, first.

By the way, I am guessing that Katherine, the proprietor of www.sweaterbabe.com, figured out how to do this lace upside down all by herself. That alone justifies about half the price of this pattern. I really have to hand it to her for doing this.

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About the author

Pam MacKenzie
Our real estate editor, Pam MacKenzie, expresses her creative side in this blog about knitting. Pam learned to knit at age 6, when her friend’s mother made Pam’s doll a dress, and Pam wanted to make more. Her mother wanted her to learn how to sew in high school, but she was afraid of the sewing machines, cutting fabric the wrong way, and the potential that sewing would have for bringing down her grade-point average. Every year, she managed to find a course conflict to avoid sewing classes. But the day after high school graduation, she took her graduation money to a fabric store, bought a kit to make a sweater, taught herself to read patterns and never looked back. These days, she knits a prayer shawl every month, along with sweaters, tote bags, gift bags and other goodies. She also designs many of her projects. Read More About PamE-mail Pam